


The Mantle of the Champion

by mymotheristherepublic



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age II
Genre: Anders (Dragon Age) Positive, Andrastianism (Dragon Age), Canon Rewrite, Canon-Typical Violence, Custom Hawke (Dragon Age), Custom Male Hawke (Dragon Age), Elf-Blooded Hawke (Dragon Age), M/M, Mage (Dragon Age) Rights, Mage Hawke (Dragon Age), Mage Rebellion (Dragon Age), Mild Gore, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Trans Anders (Dragon Age), Trans Female Character, Trans Hawke (Dragon Age), Trans Isabela (Dragon Age), Trans Male Character, Warden Carver Hawke, elf-blooded characters have elven traits, elven Malcolm Hawke, everyone is gay and trans and I can't be stopped
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-09
Updated: 2020-06-12
Packaged: 2021-01-25 22:20:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,178
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21363574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mymotheristherepublic/pseuds/mymotheristherepublic
Summary: An elf-blooded mage flees Ferelden during the Blight, only to find himself at the center of an era of upheaval that will shake the world. Percy Hawke--apostate, fugitive, revolutionary--and his journey have been well documented and scrutinized, but the most famous accounts are not the most trustworthy. To understand the events of Kirkwall's rebellion, one must understand its Champion; and to understand the Champion, one must know his tale.
Relationships: Anders/Male Hawke
Comments: 4
Kudos: 17





	1. Chapter 1

I.

The Blight closes in on their home at sunrise.

Lothering is quiet now, ever since the Wardens swept through the village. Percy remembers them. They wore tattered cloaks, woolen and rough and discolored, but he saw the telltale blue and silver armor beneath. The one who seemed to be leading them, the elf with golden eyes and a beaklike nose, came with warnings of a horde--a real horde, a real Blight. The citizens of Lothering heard days ago of the Wardens’ defeat at Ostagar. But Loghain’s scouts refused to call the invasion a Blight. The second Warden--a tan, straw-haired, stocky man, his ears bearing the same telltale point as Percy’s--turned a furious red when he confronted them.

How dare they, the first Warden insisted, when civilians stood in the path of the horde? How dare they spread lies about the Grey Wardens when they could be helping the town evacuate? The scouts did nothing. They left scrambling when the elf demanded that they tell Loghain he was coming for him. And soon enough, the Wardens left as well.

What was there to do? Lothering could not be saved if the darkspawn pressed forward. Ostagar was too close, the Imperial Highway unimpeded. Half the townsfolk weren’t certain who to trust; the other half could not afford to interrupt their livelihoods. Not when so many breadwinners left for Ostagar and never returned.

But Carver came back. The day before the Blight found Lothering, the refugees camped near the bridge followed him home, asking after loved ones. Mother ushered him inside, away from prying eyes. Better to let Bethany tend to his wounds, Percy told himself as he unbuckled his brother’s dented armor. He’d never had a talent for healing magic.

“We have to go,” Carver said as his vambraces clattered to the floor.

Percy handed Bethany another roll of bandages as she wrapped a newly healed gash in Carver’s shoulder. “We can’t yet. You’re in no shape to be on the road again, and we have nothing ready.”

“You weren’t at Ostagar, Percy. You didn’t see them.”

Percy looked from Carver to their mother. No, he wasn’t, he didn’t. He could only imagine what it was like to confront that kind of raw terror with only a sword to hold it at bay. His brow furrowed, and he took a deep, calming breath. “We can take the night to prepare. That’ll give us time.”

“We’ll leave with a knapsack each,” Mother said. “A change of clothes and some rations for everyone. Take nothing that will weigh you down.”

He knew how difficult it was for her to give that order. Mother insisted on packing Amell heirlooms and moving them to each new home, down to a candlestick she’d meant to sell when she and Father left Kirkwall. The Blight would not wait for her to pack the fine silvers, and she must have known that.

But it arrives at sunrise, like the black fog of a forest fire, rolling in under the hazy red sky. The creatures shambling towards the edge of Lothering bring with them a constant dull hiss. The sick clacking of teeth. The musty reek of flesh. They rise over the hills like a horrible, malformed sun, roiling and gnashing and beating rusted metal against metal.

Morning comes, and long, taloned fingers rattle at the shutters.

Percy awakes, his head resting on his knapsack and his cloak wrapped around him. He dreamt of darkspawn. His father's face. Hands reaching out, body enveloped by the mass of pale flesh stretched over sharp, knotted bones. Father screaming silently as they drag him away. A creature with blighted claws cutting into his chest like knives. He tries to shake the dream, but he feels it buzzing in the back of his skull. Rattling, rattling...

_Rattling._

This is wrong.

He opens his eyes. His father is gone, but a revolting hiss underscores the scraping of wood. It resonates within the frame of the house, digging into the frail beams with the delicacy of a dull cleaver hacking into fat.

Carver sleeps propped against the wall behind his bed. There are wounds that ache when he lies down; he says his ribs feel like they're crushing him. But he too sleeps in his travel clothes, leaning on his knapsack. Mother rests nearby. Even in her sleep, she knits her brow.

But Bethany is awake. Percy meets her eyes, and they are harsher than they ought to be. She hears them too. Quietly, she rises from the edge of her bed, setting her favourite red scarf straight around her neck, drawing her traveling cloak around her. Her tawny skin, dotted with freckles like his, seems dull in the dim light. But her hair, pulled back hastily at the nape of her neck, still shines like jet.

Percy makes certain the soles of his boots land soft on the floor before standing. The pit of his stomach is tight and heavy, and his blood prickles in his extremities. He reaches for the staff beside his bed, and the sensation of energy flowing from his fingertips, into the staff, and through his body once more soothes him. Deep breaths. Quiet, deep breaths.

The rattling comes from multiple hands, some closer than others. Faster, more urgent. Greedy. Teeth gnash within lipless mouths, hungry, waiting. Bethany inches closer to Carver's sleeping form, Percy to the doorway between the bedroom and the sitting room. Sunlight dapples the floor, the dining table, the chairs, the stove, through the window slats, and indistinguishable shapes move just beyond. Even the motes of dust catching the light shudder. His breath shakes. He tightens his grip.

“Percy?”

Carver. Percy gestures for silence, hears Mother help him up as he stifles a pained grunt. As he lowers his hand, a spark of orange fire traces his fingertips. He doesn't dare move his eyes from the front room, but he can imagine the scene behind him. Bethany with Father's staff drawn. Mother with Carver's bandaged arm over her shoulder, both of their knapsacks clutched next to her chest. Carver gritting his teeth, reaching for the shortsword at his belt. And he imagines how he must look, silhouetted against the ruddy light, waiting.

He swallows hard as the walls of the house groan. A shadow stops before the window, and he realizes it doesn't belong to a single creature. One barely humanoid head leans in close to the shutters, and Percy hears the hiss in its throat as it inhales. They can stay still as long as they'd like, but darkspawn roam the black tunnels beneath Thedas, and they do not survive by sight. They know the scent of meat, of sweat, of prey. The crackle from its mouth sounds almost like a smile.

All at once, the rattling and scratching become splintering. A hand crashes through the shutters, and another. Nails tear at the sides of the room. The darkspawn begin to screech, a sound between bloodlust and agony that crawls beneath Percy's skin.

“Percy!” Carver says again. “We can't fight them off like this. We stay here and die, or we cut our way out.”

Bethany steps back. “There's got to be a better way.”

“What? Better than at least _trying_ to survive this mess?”

The spark between Percy's fingers swirls into an orb of fire. He splays his hand, and it bolts through a new hole near the window, accompanied by a shrill wail.

The darkspawn's attempts to break through the walls become more savage, the rest now screaming and beating at the house. Outside, Percy hears the villagers cry out as well--some cut short with tearing and gurgling and the horrid sound of sharp teeth against flesh. Another hand breaks through close to his head. He whips towards it, charges his staff with bright orange energy, and swings hard enough to shatter bones.

“We can’t save the house.” Mother shuffles towards the back of the room as quickly as she can with Carver in tow. “Do what you have to. We can worry about where we’ll stay if we get out alive.”

“You heard her, Percy.”

He turns quickly to see Bethany, standing guard between Mother, Carver, and the unrelenting horde. She has always been a Hawke by nature, but the Amells’ cold determination sits like an heirloom on her brow.

“They haven’t reached the back of the house,” she says. “Remember what Father said? Always know your escape.”

Despite his confidence, his pride, Father feared the templars, more for his children than himself. Every home they moved into, he found a way out--a hatch in the attic, a loose board, a low window. And in every home, he and Mother made certain their children knew where to run if the worst should come to pass.

Father never lived here. But the remaining Hawkes heeded his warning. A window, just wide enough for a person to crawl through it, stood at the back of the bedroom, facing out towards a grove of trees. Should the templars from Lothering’s Chantry come knocking, they had easy access, and they had cover.

Percy inhales deeply. “They might notice us.”

“Then make sure they notice something else.”

He meets his sister’s eyes again, and they nod to each other. As Bethany ushers Mother and Carver towards the back wall, Percy steps into the light. It shifts across the floor, the shadows of ravenous Darkspawn blocking the sun as they converge on the house. He won’t waste mana on the few of them he can reach. Mother climbs through the window, and he knocks the head of his staff against the wall.

The noise stops. And then, all at once, the Darkspawn focus their attention on him.

Carver holds back pained grunts.

More nails rip through the wood.

Percy knocks his staff against the wall again, harder, more deliberate. Only Bethany is left. He hears her scramble as her feet leave the floor, but she knows the route, she’s practiced this before. Percy slams the other end of his staff against the floor, hits it again, and again, and again.

They can see him now. Hungry white eyes peer through the cracks and tears in the walls. He doesn’t move as the door begins to shake. That horrid rattling returns, louder, the door shuddering against the weight of the horrors beating at it with hands bloodied black with the Blight. The hinges no longer creak--the wood splinters as the Darkspawn rip them out of the doorframe.

_Not yet,_ he tells himself.

He straps his staff to his back and readies his spell. Threads of fire emerging from his veins coil around his hands and snake through his fingers, and he takes one final look at the room, gathering his memories, pushing them to the back of his mind.

When the darkspawn break down the door, seconds crawl by like centuries. They pour into the room, shoulder to skeletal shoulder, clawing and clambering over each other voraciously. Their broken nails are almost close enough to graze Percy's throat. His eyes widen, but he steps back, digging his heel into the floor to steady himself.

_Now._

Something like shock registers on the nearest darkspawn's face; it doesn't have time to retreat. The spell roars to life in waves of wild flame. He braces both hands on the doorframe, and fire spreads across the walls, flooding the room with light and guttural howling. It envelops and devours all, heedless of anything but the man fueling it. Sweat beads on his brow and rolls down his temples, but Percy maintains the spell. He can’t stop. Not to replenish his mana. Not to make sure his family is safe. Not because the smell of burning darkspawn flesh makes the bile rise in his throat. The smoke clouds his vision, but as long as there are darkspawn still shambling through the wreckage, he maintains the fire.

A beam collapses, crushing the last vestiges of life from the charred husk of a hurlock. The center of Percy’s chest feels like a blacksmith’s furnace, fire and fumes pouring forth and stealing the air from his lungs. Whether the movement in front of him is from another darkspawn clinging to consciousness or from burnt limbs curling in death, he wills the cleansing fire to roar one last time.

In less than a minute, the front of the Hawkes’ home is obliterated. All that remains are scattered ashes, half-melted shards of metal, and charred, malformed bones. Another moment limps past slower than it should. Gray flakes swirl around him, directionless in the absence of fire. His lungs fill with air again, and he coughs as he releases the doorframe.

“Percy!”

A crackling hiss--a _living _hiss--breaks his concentration. Percy turns just as Mother reels back from behind the house with Carver and screams. Lightning crackles, and the hiss becomes a scream, but the monster crying out does not die.

Percy rushes to the back of the house, behind the only walls still standing, in time to see Bethany cleave a genlock’s skull with the end of her staff. Four darkspawn remain. Perhaps they were wise enough to flee as their companions burned alive.

He searches inside himself for any remaining mana and finds none. As his sister shouts for him again, he draws his quarterstaff again and rushes the nearest darkspawn, slamming the dense wood into the side of its neck with a terrible crack. Another lunges for them, teeth bared. Bethany turns the blade of her staff outwards again. Before it reaches her with outstretched claws, she steps forward, and the darkspawn impales itself cleanly through its ribs.

One more. A shriek. It maneuvers past them both, out of Bethany’s reach, barely staggered by Percy’s staff. Before he can call out, a glint of steel flashes in the morning light, and with a pained grunt, Carver sinks his blade into the shriek’s side.

True to its name, it howls in agony, even louder as he draws back his arm and saws deep. As it twitches one final time, Carver shoves it aside, and it slumps to the ground with the others.

“Is that the last of them?” Percy asks.

Carver shakes his head and leans against Mother. “Hardly. If the damn Wardens stayed another day, we’d know how many and how to kill them.”

“For now,” Bethany says, “hitting them with what we’ve got seems to work.”

As she pulls Mother and Carver behind the remnants of their home again, Percy peers out towards the rest of Lothering.

There is no sight terrible enough to prepare one for a darkspawn horde. Once, not many years ago, Percy watched a templar’s blade pierce his father’s chest, watched him linger, dying, for days, watched mother weep because she knew she couldn’t call for a healer. That, he told himself, was the worst tragedy he would ever witness. But the scene before him--the dry ground soaking up blood like spring rain, the bodies speared to the sides of buildings with limbs torn away as if by animals, the creatures fighting over scraps of flesh, the families cut down as they fled--seizes his throat and strangles the last remaining courage from him.

Lothering is gone.

“We can’t be the only survivors,” he says, and ducks behind the wall again.

Carver winces. “You don’t understand. Hardly _anyone _who fought at Ostagar survived--trained soldiers, all gone. You think a little backwater village is going to hold any of the darkspawn back? Those monsters took down every last Grey Warden in Ferelden except the two you think you saw. If we make it out alive, we’re already luckier than the bastards who fight darkspawn for a living.”

“Carver, listen--” “No, Percy, _you _listen.” His face burns an angry red. “One of them crushed the King in one hand. These are farmers and Chantry sisters and children we’re talking about. They’re gone. We need to leave before we’re gone too.”

He wants to tell Carver he’s callous, that the citizens and refugees can be saved. But Carver knows. His jaw is clenched tight, the look in his eyes distant and melancholy; he doesn’t want to leave them behind either.

“Alright.”

Carver blinks.

“We’ll leave.” Percy reaches out, takes Carver’s knapsack, and slings it over his shoulder. “That should make things easier for Mother. You both need to move as fast as you can.”

“No. We should carry our own weight.”

Carver stands up straight with a hitch in his step and his breath. It’s not the time to tell him he doesn’t need to be a hero. Percy hands him the bag, and Carver steadies himself before sliding both arms into the straps and testing his ability to swing his sword without losing the few belongings on his back. The Hawke siblings look to one another, each with a solemn nod, adjusting their grips on their weapons.

Percy exhales. “Towards the woods, then?”

“Towards the--”

A bolt cuts Bethany off as it cracks into the wall beside her head. Before Percy turns, a sharp pain bursts through his shoulder, blooming down his right arm. Mother’s voice strains through the ringing in his ears.

“Maker preserve us!”

His eyes meet the cold stare of a hurlock, a crude crossbow clutched in its hands. Another shambles from behind a tree, and he hears the grotesque clicking of at least a dozen more throats.

There isn’t time.

“Go!” Percy gestures towards the center of the village, and waits for his family to run before uncorking the flask on his hip, taking a bitter gulp of lyrium, and sending an arc of frost spikes towards the darkspawn.

His muscles contract around the bolt lodged in his shoulder. He knows better than to pull it out now, not when there isn’t time to stop the bleeding. Instead, he grits his teeth, snaps off the long end of the bolt, and breaks into a run towards what’s left of Lothering’s town square.

Before the Wardens came, the night of their defeat at Ostagar, it rained in Lothering as if the sky had swallowed up the Waking Sea. They say the Maker smiles sadly over His Grey Wardens; perhaps He truly wept that day. Percy’s boots still sink into the deep mud that was once Lothering’s main street, and blood swirls in the water rising from the mire.

A darkspawn raises its sword to strike Mother, but Carver slices into its arm before it lowers the blade. The creature lowers its head close enough for the spittle between its teeth to touch his face. Before it attacks again, Bethany’s staff blade strikes its temple deep enough to wrench it backwards.

Another rushes to replace it, lashing out with a clawed hand towards Bethany’s back. Percy doesn’t waste time regaining his footing. The darkspawn crumples before him with a swift blow to the ribcage, and Mother catches his arm before he follows it to the ground.

Carver shouts his name, and he spins towards a hurlock armed with an axe too large for its wasted arms--but the creature doesn’t stop for him. It rushes past, chasing after its prey with single-minded animosity. Percy barely catches a glimpse of dented armor in its path before he draws mana from deep within his chest and casts a white-hot fan of flames towards its back. The creature falls with a strangled scream as its body ignites, and in the flash of light, Percy recognizes the flames of Andraste’s pyre, and the blade piercing through them.

He hasn’t seen a templar since they fled with a group of refugees the day before. They claimed it was to protect them on the road, but Percy understood enough about their order. If there isn’t a fire, you don’t call the guards to put it out; if you don’t suspect apostates, you don’t need templars to hunt them.

The man before him digs his sword into the ground and rests his weight against the cross-guard. The skirts of his armor are ragged, the leather between his breastplate and pauldrons cut to his bare skin, which bleeds down his side. But his eyes are clear. He looks up from the smouldering darkspawn, and grips the hilt of his weapon.

It isn’t the templar’s voice that breaks the silence. A swift hacking sound cuts off a darkspawn’s scream, the building behind him shuddering as a blade thwacks against its wall, and a woman, her blade bloodied, approaches him.

“Keep your distance,” the templar says, lowering his voice to whisper, “_mage._”

The woman brushes a strand of copper hair away from her forehead. Despite her companion’s full armor, she seems poorly prepared for battle, clad in light leathers and boots and a simple cloak; her bare, muscular arms and sharpened sword tell a different story.

She clasps his shoulder and catches her breath. “Other survivors? That’s not what I expected this close to the Wilds.”

“Aveline, they’re--” 

“The people who saved your life.”

“Mages.”

Percy steps in front of his family, planting his staff firmly between himself and the templar. The man is in no shape to strike at him, but when frightened Chantry folk whisper that mages don’t need staffs to kill, they forget that templars don’t need swords either.

“You have no business here.”

The templar straightens up to his full height--still not as tall as Percy. “My business is the Order, Blight or not.”

“I’m giving you a chance now,” Percy says. “Mind yourself, or I won’t be so civil.”

Aveline steps forward and holds her arm out in front of the templar, her expression stoic, calm, but tense. Percy notices the splatters of blood on her clothes, the healing scars across her arms, the determined set of her angular jaw.

She tilts her head towards the templar. “Stand down, Wesley. That darkspawn nearly killed you. You’re no good to the Order dead.”

Wesley’s face falls, but he stands down all the same. Percy nods to Aveline and takes a step back. Her posture says she means them no harm; her tone says both he and Wesley need to watch their step.

“Wait.” Carver stands beside Percy, looks Aveline over. “You were at Ostagar. One of Cailan’s knights. I’m surprised anyone in your unit survived.”

Aveline’s expression darkens, almost imperceptibly. The nerve Carver struck is raw, but deep enough to stay buried. He doesn’t seem to notice as he continues,

“Carver Hawke. I fought--”

“Under Captain Varel. I heard about you. It took three men to drag you out of a fight we’d already lost.”

When Percy heard Carver would be stationed at Ostagar, in what the King hoped would be the final push against the darkspawn, he tried not to imagine his brother on the field. He was protective, stubborn, and either could kill him. Percy counted the days until the battle, praying each night for Carver’s safety, begging Andraste to temper his spirit and bring him home. Perhaps the men who rescued Carver answered his prayers. He doesn’t dare ask if they survived as well.

“Yesterday’s news aside, Wesley’s injured,” Aveline says, “and the tavern across the way is empty. It’s as good a place as any to plan a way out. Can either of you heal?”

She looks from Percy to Bethany, who nods.

“Minor wounds, mostly,” she says.

Aveline drapes Wesley’s arm over her shoulder, pressing on towards the battered signpost of the Dane’s Refuge. “Good. Some healing is better than none.”

Percy instinctively braces his hands on his staff as Wesley and Aveline pass him, but follows nonetheless. Wesley’s injuries are worse than he thought. There’s a pronounced limp in his step, and more blood dried in his close-cropped hair. Father’s fears always colored his own. Templars were indestructible, better run from than fought. But here was Wesley. Fleeing, hurt, mortal.

“Will you be a problem for us?” Percy asks.

Wesley grimaces. “My wife seems to think we can work together. Who am I to argue? Perhaps I’m not in a position to refuse help from mages.”

His wife. Percy should have guessed. He supposes there are few other reasons a Fereldan soldier and a templar would find themselves in Lothering together.

He catches a glare from Bethany out of the corner of his eye. _Don’t test him,_ she seems to say. But he’d seen Wesley sizing up Bethany as much as him. If he makes one wrong move, threatens either of them, Percy can’t afford his usual diplomacy.

Carver grunts as he ascends the few creaking steps to the Dane’s Refuge. It’s a shame to see it in this state; it was never much, but it was always warm and inviting on cold Fereldan nights. Now, the only light is the sun peeking through the door as Carver shoves it open with the side of his arm. The chairs where patrons once sat near the fire are still upside down on nearby tables. Empty mugs line the shelves behind the counter. The tavern never opened that morning, and Percy hopes that means Barlin escaped.

He lights the leftover logs on the hearth with a spark from his fingertips, and takes down a chair from a nearby table for Aveline to ease Wesley into. No need to scrutinize Wesley’s face to know that he’s watching him. But as Bethany kneels down to heal him, the tension in his posture eases, and he settles against the back of the chair.

“I assume you’ll be coming with us?” Percy asks.

Aveline nods. “We all have a better chance of surviving this together. I’d rather have a fellow soldier and two competent mages at my back. And whether or not one of us is a templar, I’m certain you’d rather take your chances with two more swords against the darkspawn.”

“As long as your husband won’t turn us in, that’s more than reasonable.”

“Good man.”

Percy pulls down another chair and gestures for Carver to sit. His brother raises an eyebrow, leaning back against the wall as if waiting for a mug of ale from his favorite barmaid, as the door closes gently, and the light from outside fades into the glow of the fireplace.

Mother makes certain the lock clicks into place, stands with her palm pressed to the door before sighing and taking in her surroundings. Percy doesn’t remember a time when Mother’s bearing, however noble, didn’t carry with it an air of weariness. Fatigue weighed upon her smiles. Exhaustion deepened her frowns. But now, more than ever, she seems simply...tired. Unwilling to rest, but far past her limit.

“I have a way out of Ferelden,” she says.

Percy closes his eyes and kneads the bridge of his nose. The fire’s warmth almost relaxes him, but the iron smell of blood stings at the back of his throat. “Can we make it that far?”

“I don’t know. But we can’t stay here, and if we made it to Gwaren...”

“...Then we could try to find passage to Kirkwall.”

He knows she hears the heaviness in his voice, notices Bethany flinch even as she mends Wesley’s side, but she wouldn’t suggest Kirkwall frivolously. She’s thought about this. Perhaps agonized over it.

Bethany lowers Wesley’s arm. “You know how dangerous that is.”

“I understand,” Mother says, “but we have family in Kirkwall. People to protect us--a _title._”

Her eyes flit towards Aveline and Wesley, and she tries to smile.

“You’re welcome to come with us,” she continues.

Aveline’s mouth tightens into a stern line. “We’re not in any position to refuse charity, ma’am.”

Percy glances at Wesley again. Father spoke of the Chantry in Kirkwall like a shadow looming over the city, a snake with fangs bared, waiting to strike. He never saw much of Kirkwall from the Circle--Father spent most of his life on the streets of Denerim, shipped off to the Free Marches because Kinloch Hold was overcrowded--but he listened. Every mage’s story of hiding from templars in the maze of sewers below the city, being torn from their homes in the night, enduring beatings when they tried to run, hardened his heart against the very stone hewn into the shape of Kirkwall. Perhaps they would deliver themselves into the arms of the beast. Perhaps the beast is preferable to the horde.

In the rooms behind the bar, something stirs. There is something inhuman about the way it moves, something that makes Percy quiet the sound of his own breathing. Carver straightens up and grasps the hilt of his sword, Bethany rises slowly and reaches for her staff.

There are no exits but the front door. An overturned table could be a useful obstacle, but risky. Percy doesn’t know how many creatures are here; the one he hears could be a distraction, perhaps the leadup to an ambush. A gray hand reaches through the doorframe--the blood painted across its skin is red and fresh, not its own, and there are pieces of flesh still stuck to its nails.

He steps backwards. There are more of them. Feeding. Waiting. Any time they bought hiding in the tavern is gone. They’ve walked into a trap, and the spring is taut.

Percy’s mouth can only form one word before the darkspawn descend:

“_Run._”


	2. Chapter 2

II. 

A blast from Percy’s staff wrenches the door of the Dane’s Refuge from its hinges. It ricochets into a group of darkspawn just outside the tavern, but it isn’t nearly enough to stagger the waiting swarm. A hurlock lunges for Mother, and Carver deflects it with the flat of his blade, turning it to slice beneath the darkspawn’s ribs. A genlock lunges for Wesley; before his sword reaches its neck, it sinks its jagged teeth into his arm, piercing the leather underside of his armor. He cries out and drives it back with his knee, swiftly bringing down his sword with a flash of holy fire and pinning it to the ground.

Whatever progress they made against the darkspawn is null. The rest of the horde has caught the scent of the slaughter. Shadows move over the horizon, twitching with blood-thirst, new silhouettes larger than the rest. A horrible understanding dawns on him; legends of the Blight always tell of hulking, horned ogres at the forefront of darkspawn forces, and he saw none that morning. It hadn’t been a full assault--that was waiting for them over the hills.

There’s little point in fighting. Combat will only slow them down. But he sees Carver’s injuries catching up with him, Wesley’s limp still hampering his stride. Even Percy feels the bolt in his shoulder stinging again.

Not now.

_Not now._

His heartbeat pulses in his throat. More of Lothering’s dead lie before them, but their faces blur together, and he can’t stomach thinking of how many of them he knew, how many tried to run, how many never had the chance. The Blight doesn’t distinguish between soldier and civilian. It takes, and it feeds, and it spreads. Perhaps it could be tamed if there was an intelligence behind it, but the animalistic need to hunt cannot be reasoned with.

The pulse becomes a rhythm beneath his feet, and Percy realizes it’s no longer his heart, but something approaching behind him. By the time he faces it, the ogre is almost upon them.

The beast’s frame is mountainous, its face both skeletal and a grotesque mass of flesh. Twisting horns emerge from its skull, the same mottled gray as the scaly hide along its extremities. Large plates of armor barely contain its breadth, and as sturdy as its musculature seems, its pallid skin sags as if threatening to slough away from its body. It roars, its terrible maw slavering, and lowers its head.

Percy steps aside in time to dodge the ogre as it charges forward, horns ready to gore anything in its path. Its hulking fist grazes Wesley as it passes, and he topples against Aveline. He was wrong--they can’t outrun this. Not when two of them are injured. Not when the bulk of the horde is still waiting outside Lothering.

He meets the ogre’s terrible yellow eyes, and offers a prayer to Andraste: _don’t let me die here._

Regaining its bearings, it charges again. Percy waits until he can almost smell its breath, then pivots on his heel, slashing it across its side with a burning staff blade as it rushes past him. Someone shouts his name, and he hardly hears through the blood pounding in his ears.

But there is another voice, closer. Someone pushes him out of the way while the ogre crashes headfirst into a nearby shack, collapsing onto its side with a pained bellow.

“Percy, go!”

Bethany. She stands in front of him, her staff braced in both hands.

“No, I have to--”

“I have a plan.” She straightens her back, and her hands glow blue. “It’s my turn to take a risk--it’s my choice. You... Whatever happens, take care of Mother and Carver.”

The ogre begins to stir.

Percy tugs on her arm, but she moves away. “Bethany, stop! We’re not leaving you behind!”

“Just _go, _Percy! Protect them! I’ll find you when this is over!”

He knows Bethany can’t see him, but he nods, and turns to face the others. Mother shakes her head, Carver readies his blade, and still, Percy orders them back, orders them to keep going. His throat tightens as Mother calls out for Bethany until her voice breaks.

“Please,” Percy begs. “We have to leave, Bethany knows what she’s doing.”

“She doesn’t! That’s my little girl!”

As Carver pulls Mother by the sleeve, a flash of lightning illuminates their faces, and the ogre howls in agony. Percy hears the other darkspawn rush to defend it, one after another falling to Bethany’s attacks. Above the cacophony, Bethany pleads once more for them to run. More lightning, brighter than the last, refracts off Wesley’s chestplate.

And then, nothing.

Percy turns his head as the ogre knocks the staff out of Bethany’s hand. The force sends her reeling, reaching to clasp her injured arm. Its fist smashes into her side, and it pins her until she stops fighting. When it lifts her, Bethany has enough strength to make one last attempt to escape. She engulfs her hands in fire, and they sear into its hide.

It lurches forward, brings down its clenched hand, and the fire dies out.

Mother screams.

The ogre, its palms bloody and charred, crashes towards them through the remnants of another home. Aveline shouts for Mother and Wesley to stand aside and draws her sword, Wesley’s shield held in front of her. No more time. Percy strains to find a source of mana, and his magic wrenches itself from him like ice cracking across the surface of a pond. He ignores the pain--he has to.

A thick layer of frost covers the ogre’s skin before Carver’s sword crashes into it, and a deep bellow shakes it to the core. Its flesh seems shattered, a thick wedge carved out of the middle of its chest. More black ichor oozes from its wounds, and the ground beneath it slickens with the taint. Percy faces him, the ogre caught between them. Carver’s wounds will catch up to him. He can’t lose him too.

The ogre thrashes its horns, but Carver dodges, sinking his blade into its arm as he regains his footing. The sword catches bone. He rips it free, a mass of flesh falling from its body and coating his sword black.

Percy fires a stone fist between its shoulders. A distraction. He knows better than to expect such a minor spell to make a difference. But the distraction serves its purpose. The ogre’s face, full of terrible, primal anger, turns towards him. Extending his free hand, he raises a single finger to signal to Carver: _hold._

Whatever is left in him, he has to try. The taut threads of magic lash out from the center of his chest to the ogre’s, tying them together with an invisible tether. A faint white aura pulsates around it, and Percy feels the spell threatening to shear, but he holds on as his ears ring and pressure builds in his temples.

Just as he meets the ogre’s eyes, it tears toward him once again. He doesn’t move to stop it. Before it reaches him, he throws himself to the side, and it hurtles past him, towards the darkspawn. The threads pull tight. Percy forces every last shred of mana through the fraying connection before releasing it, and all at once, shards of energy pierce the ogre’s flesh from the inside.

A blast of light and blackened gore sends the darkspawn back, slivers of magic shredding their skin to tatters. The few left standing clutch at their wounds, blinded, before falling, shrieking until their voices die out. And then, for once, quiet.

Not long ago, Percy walked this same street with Mother and Bethany, basket brimming with food from the village market. Light blanketed the square sunflower yellow behind the morning clouds. He remembers Bethany smiling as the Chantry bells chimed, and the soft hum of the Chant:

_“Let the blade pass through the flesh,_

_Let my blood touch the ground--”_

The red of her scarf is the only spot of color amidst grayish mud. Percy’s throat tightens, and a cold numbness bleeds through his chest.

_“--Let my cries touch their hearts. Let mine be the last sacrifice.”_

He can only stand by and watch as Mother staggers through the muck, her skirts gripped in white-knuckled hands. This isn’t happening. Not now. Not Bethany.

Mother collapses to her knees beside her, reaches out a shaking hand to grasp her shoulder. “Bethany? Bethany, wake up.”

Only the emptiness of silence answers her. Her crying is muffled at first, becoming louder and strangled as sobs wrack her body. Percy looks back to Carver, standing frozen in his tracks, color draining from his face. Between their mother’s tears, he hears Bethany’s name, over, and over, and over until her voice breaks.

He bows his head. “She’s...gone, Mother.”

“This is your fault! You shouldn’t have left her behind!”

Her words are jagged. He has never heard her this angry, this bitter. There’s no use telling her that he couldn’t have stopped Bethany, but the thought gnaws at him: maybe he should have tried.

Bethany ought to be alive. Bethany ought to be standing here, relieved that the threat has passed long enough to buy them time to escape. Instead, her mother weeps over her as Wesley approaches, limping, his hand clutching his side.

“Madame Hawke?” he asks.

Mother doesn’t look at him, but acknowledges his presence with a nod.

“I understand if you would rather a templar not speak the last rites for your daughter, but if you would allow--”

“Please.”

With great difficulty, Wesley kneels beside her and folds his arm over his chest. The rest approach them, each kneeling as well. Percy bows his head, closes his eyes. Praying quietly along with Wesley is all he can do to keep the last image of Bethany telling him to run out of his mind.

“Ashes we were, and ashes we become. Maker, give this young woman a place at your side. Let us take comfort in the peace she has found in eternity.”

Eternity. Eternity feels so final. The beginning of an endless journey, fading into the expansive distance. The most devout of Chantry mothers would describe eternity as a joyous vision, an aspiration, a reward for a pious life, but the teachings of the Chantry do not adapt to the imperfect sentimentality of men. Percy cannot celebrate the passing of his sister, his best friend. He cannot ‘take comfort’ in the peace victims of the Blight have found in death.

Despite himself, Percy’s hands shake, and scalding tears streak his face. Carver rests a hand on his uninjured shoulder, and for once, the two of them embrace. But Mother’s words still cut deep. His fault. His fault. _His fault._

Mother’s voice, quieter now, interrupts his thoughts.

“I will never forget you.”

His heart sinks. When he looks out over Lothering now, unsteady on his feet, his jaw aching, all this...loss feels so final. He can't go home. Whatever else hurt him, he always had a place to go. But home is gone. The piece of it that fractured when Father died warps and breaks. He won't forget Bethany, or Lothering, but he can never run and hide somewhere they still exist.

"We have to leave," he says.

Mother shakes her head. "But, Bethany..."

"I won't honor her memory by wasting our chance to outrun the darkspawn." Percy exhales shakily. "She gave us that chance.”

The ancient stone bridge out of Lothering looms in the distance, across fields that lay in the shadow of an eerily still windmill. Beyond it, deep thickets, paths overgrown where wagon wheels haven’t worn ruts towards the highway. Percy uses his staff to support him as he trudges through the once tilled pastures, now a slurry of mud that he sinks into with every step. Aveline falls into stride alongside him. Unsurprising--she’s a soldier, she must be used to marching through worse conditions.

“I’m sorry,” she says.

Percy shakes his head. “No, it’s not your fault.” “Your sister clearly cared for your family. For what it’s worth, you have my sympathy, and she has my gratitude.”

Gratitude won’t bring Bethany back, but he knows Aveline means what she says. Hearing it would be easier if the wound wasn’t fresh.

Aveline glances at his shoulder. “You’re still hurt. You didn’t ask her to heal you when we stopped.”

“Wesley needed it more,” he says. “It’s alright, I’ll heal myself when we rest.”

She doesn’t offer more than a “hm” in response. However wary he is of her husband, he feels comfortable taking his eyes off Aveline and trusting her not to clap him in irons. And when she stops, holding her arm in front of him, he trusts her instincts before he hears familiar snarling from the nearby woods.

“Bastards,” she mutters, quietly drawing her sword.

The darkspawn are not stronger or smarter than men. They cannot defend themselves behind city walls, they cannot unite with the brutal efficiency of an army, they cannot forge weapons better than the ones that cut them down. But there will always be more of them. Kill one, and two more will replace it, like monsters hewn from the very shadows they cast.

He has no time to draw his staff before a pale form lunges at Carver. His brother drives his elbow sharply into its ribs with a brittle crack, and as it staggers, he reaches for his sword. Wesley throws himself in front of Mother as another lunges for her. Its claws rake against his armor with a skin-crawling sound, before he drives the sharp end of his shield into its skull.

These are not the remnants of the mob that descended upon Lothering, no. The first darkspawn were nothing more than a shock troop. Expected to take as many casualties as they caused--expendable. This is the body of the horde. And now that the survivors are tired and broken, their job will be that much easier.

A gust blows through the field, and Percy watches as the darkspawn...stop. Their gaunt features contort in what he can only describe as fear, bloodless maws twisting into howls before a blast of fire incinerates them where they stand. The sound above him, thundering and guttural, pierces his skull. Stucco and thatching crumbles to the ground. Towering behind the cloud of dust, a dragon cranes its head skyward, roaring, its massive talons clutching the wreckage of the windmill. The walls disintegrate under its weight as it slinks forward, a low growl reverberating through its teeth.

Its scales, sleek and segmented across its serpentine neck, would be violet, if not for the glint of blood red in the sunlight. Spikes jut from its spine and along its extremities, all dwarfed by triple pairs of great, curved horns, an armored plate sloping down the length of its muzzle. The beast spreads its wings, herding the darkspawn back like sheep. Percy can do nothing but stand and watch, panic freezing him in place as the dragon’s tail drags near him, all of its limbs finally touching the ground. He knows it’s seen them, but its eyes--not gold, but a bright, chilling yellow--are fixed straight ahead.

A hurlock rushes towards it, and the dragon crushes its crude armor in its jaws, tossing its broken body aside. Yet more meet the edges of its razorlike claws, cleaved in twain and discarded into the muck. The rest swarm, as if they will overwhelm such a colossal creature with sheer force of will, and are met with a scorching blast of flame. Whatever rudimentary intelligence drives the darkspawn is not enough to stop them from throwing themselves at the dragon with the ferocity of rabid dogs.

And when the last lie smoldering in the dirt, the dragon turns its head, smoke still trailing from its nostrils, towards the group fleeing Lothering; Percy could swear it looks directly into his eyes. Unlike the darkspawn, he senses a great, ageless wisdom in its gaze, and realizes how little he can do against such a powerful force. But it doesn’t attack. If it could smile, he somehow knows it would.

Its scales begin to flake away like burning paper, floating upwards before they disappear, and its form becomes smaller, and smaller. Horns morph into a complicated hairstyle, adorned with a metal headpiece, its wings collapsing into feathered pauldrons, and before them stands something--someone--no less imposing than the dragon.

Aveline points her sword towards the woman now approaching them. “Stay back.”

The woman doesn’t flinch. Her painted lips simply curl into a smirk as she stares down the length of the blade leveled at her.

Percy stands beside Aveline. “I’d be more careful with that, we don’t even know--”

"_I_ know.” She sneers. “Only a Witch of the Wilds could have done this.”

The witch doesn’t protest; she seems more bemused than concerned. Even in her advanced age, she carries herself with the grace of a proud young woman, her arms folded across her chest, her eyes narrowed into a sly, curious expression.

“And what do you plan to do, were that the case?” she asks.

She’s right. Fereldans tell tales of Witches of the Wilds, hoping stories of shapeshifting mages would keep their children out of the woods at night, lest a witch snatch them up and eat their hearts. Shapeshifting is old magic, but documented nonetheless. He doubts many other aspects of the legends, but apostates hiding deep in the wilderness are hardly a strange concept. And if any rumors of their powers are true, Aveline’s sword may as well be a broken twig.

Wesley doesn’t dare step forward, proclamations of apostasy on his lips, and Percy doesn’t preemptively try to stop him. Something about this woman demands reverence, willingly given or not.

When she seems satisfied that none of them require cutting down, she steps forward, armored fingers drumming her bracers. “You intend on braving the Korcari Wilds, do you?”

She looks almost directly at Percy again, barely disguising her fascination.

“We have no other choice,” he says.

“None? You could do as most do when their time has run out--succumb to the horde.”

He clenches his fist involuntarily. “Why are you here?”

Her laugh is low and resonant as she walks past him, past the rest of them. “The Wilds have been restless--Wardens, darkspawn, and now refugees seek to cross my threshold. You’ll walk into the waiting maw of the horde if you continue on this path. You would meet with far less resistance traveling north, but that doesn’t seem to matter to you. Is it foolishness, I wonder, or desperation?”

News travels quickly along Ferelden trade routes. The fastest way across the Waking Sea is through Highever, and Highever is burning. The Teryn and his wife are dead, their eldest son disappeared into the Wilds before the battle at Ostagar, and their daughter may as well have died with the rest of the Wardens.

To his surprise, Mother speaks. “There are still ships sailing from Gwaren, there must be.” 

“And if there aren’t?”

“There will be.” She doesn’t cower as the witch faces her. “They won’t moor the tradeships, the merchants won’t allow it. I know how many dock in Kirkwall, and with Highever and Amaranthine out of commission, they’ll send even more ships out of Gwaren.”

The witch nods. “You’ve clearly thought about this long before now.”

It hadn’t occurred to Percy until now. Mother has likely mapped numerous paths out of Ferelden, especially since Father died. Gwaren makes sense when you don’t want to pass through templar infested territory; a ship carrying lumber from Gwaren will take you almost anywhere.

“You still haven’t answered me,” Percy says, and the witch cocks her head towards him. “Why are you here--and who are you?”

“My, aren’t you impertinent for a mage?” she scoffs. “And here I thought that they taught apostates to keep their heads down.”

“Yet you don’t.”

“Just like you.” She cackles, her voice too loud and self-assured. “I came to Lothering to look for survivors, presuming that I wouldn’t find any. But there you were, engaged with the most fearsome of darkspawn. I wanted to lay eyes on the man who bested such a creature, and now I have.”

Percy follows her as she continues across the field, unimpeded by the upturned earth. He won't let it end like this. She doesn’t get to toy with his family and walk away, Witch of the Wilds or not. He knows she senses him following her, but she doesn’t stop until he calls after her,

“_Tell me your name._”

“Names hold more power than you know, boy.” The dragon faces him, only barely contained by the witch’s form. “I have many. The elves know me as Asha’bellanar. If the qunari or the dwarves have found a name for me, it hasn’t caught on nearly as well. But youcan call me Flemeth.”

Flemeth. That name is older than the legends of Calenhad. If she’s Flemeth, the _real _Flemeth, then she isn’t just a Witch of the Wilds--she’s the first.

“Whoever you are,” he says, “we need your help.”

“And why should I give it?”

He’s hardly ever felt this kind of rage, boiling and threatening to spill over. When she looks at him, her smile silently asks how long he can contain it.

“What do you want?”

Flemeth studies him, sizes him up, and extends a closed hand. When he reaches out towards her, she opens her fingers, and an amulet settles into his palm. The pendant is solid wood, polished and oiled to a fine sheen. Its long, leather cord dangles through his fingers, and carved lines twist towards a black stone at the center. The longer he stares at it, the less light the stone reflects, until it feels as if he’s peering into a bottomless pit. Flemeth grasps his hand and closes it around the amulet.

“There is a Dalish clan headed for Kirkwall,” she says. “Find their Keeper, Marethari, and bring this to her.”

The pendant seems to pulse against his skin, out of sync with his own heartbeat.

“What is this?” 

“All that matters,” she says, “is that Marethari knows what to do. Your only job is to make sure it reaches her. Do this for me, and I will ensure that your family reaches Kirkwall. I believe the terms are more than agreeable. One might say they’re weighted in your favor.”

Deals are never this simple. Exchanges are equivalent, and eventually, this one will be as well. If he accepts Flemeth’s amulet, he knows he’s accepting a contract with terms he may never fully understand. But he does understand the darkspawn, and whatever Flemeth’s plans are, her price is not as immediate as theirs.

Percy tucks the amulet into his satchel. “If I do this, you’ll demand nothing of me after?”

“I won’t. I make no promises about the rest of the world.” Flemeth turns once more towards the woods. “You never told me your name. After all, I gave you mine.”

“Hawke,” he says.

“Just Hawke?”

He’s already accepted her bargain. There’s no other power his name could give her. “Percival. Percy.”

“Old-fashioned, aristocratic. This won’t be the last time I hear it.” Flemeth doesn’t look back as she walks away. “You have your task. I’ve put a great deal of faith in you, and I expect that faith to be rewarded.”

He doesn’t ask anything more. Once Flemeth disappears past the treeline, the only proof of her existence is the destruction left in her wake, and the amulet buried amongst his belongings. Percy rejoins his family, his pulse hammering against his ribs.

“Maker’s breath, what did you do?” Carver asks.

Percy responds, his voice flat, “I made sure we’d reach Kirkwall.”

“At what cost? You think she’s not going to turn on you the moment you give that Keeper her fucking necklace? You think it’s that simple?”

“No, Carver, I don’t.”

“Then what’s your plan? Leaving Mother and I alone if that...that _witch _decides she isn’t done with you?”

“My plan is making sure you both live!”

Carver's next argument dies in his throat. He gapes at his brother, and Percy can’t tell if it’s anger or bitter acceptance in his tone when he says, “Fine then. I hope you’re right about this.”

They don't speak for most of the afternoon. Lothering itself is eerily silent as they return. Percy brings Wesley with him to gather firewood, ripping boards from the wreckage of homes, eventually making their way to the Chantry.

“There must be plenty of bookshelves and chests here,” Wesley says as they enter the darkened sanctum. “Not as if they’ll be needing them anytime soon.”

They set to work dismantling the small Chantry library, the contents seemingly evacuated with the sisters. As reluctant as he seems to do so, Wesley wedges his sword into weak spots before Percy breaks the wood away. He took off his armor before they set to work, and it lays in pieces in front of the altarpiece. Beneath it, his undershirt is stained with various stages of drying blood and dirt. He obviously hasn’t removed it in days.

“I’ve never had a chance to speak to a templar,” Percy says.

“That isn’t surprising. Apostates only tend to continue their...apostasy if they distance themselves from templars.” Wesley looks up from the shelf he’s tipped over. “With a Chantry this close to home, though, you must be familiar with us in some respects.”

Percy sighs. “There has never been a day I allowed myself to forget how close your people are. I imagine you feel much the same about mages.”

“And you resent that?”

“Mages are only occasionally a danger to you,” he says. “You are always a danger to mages.”

Wesley pauses, letting his injuries rest. “You don’t believe that magic is dangerous? At the very least, that it has the potential to be?”

“Do you believe in the Maker, Wesley?”

“I do.”

Percy looks up at the Chantry flag still hanging above the pulpit, swaying proud and scarlet in the wind from the open doors. “Andraste does not condemn mages. She condemns the abuse of power, and magic is a power like any other.”

“And how do you reconcile that,” Wesley asks, “with what the Chantry teaches about her?”

He stands, a bundle of broken wood under one arm, and offers Wesley his hand. “I don’t know. I wish I had a say in the Chantry’s teachings, and I wish I understood what Andraste meant when she first sang the Chant.”

“I suppose...we each find meaning in her words.”

As he helps Wesley stand, Percy looks him in the eyes, perhaps for the first time since they met. Despite his harsh, square features, there’s a weary softness to Wesley’s face, vestiges of a life before the Order. When he asks him why he became a templar, he can almost predict the answer.

“To help people. The majority are defenseless against...” He trails off, averting his gaze. “I want the people of Thedas to feel safe in their own homes. Common, hard-working folks who look to the Chantry and the Order for solace.”

“And if they’re mages?”

“If they’re mages...then they’re safest in a Circle. The Circles protect your people as much as the rest of us.”

All Percy can do is nod. “I apologize for dragging you into a conversation like this. My personal beliefs regarding templars are of little importance to surviving the Blight.”

“I understand. Nothing is certain until we reach Kirkwall.”

_Nothing is certain. _Wesley can say things like that and walk away. Everything is certain for him; the Chantry will take care of him, no matter where he is. Kirkwall is no different. As long as there are mages, the Chantry will welcome more templars. For all the riches the Amells may possess, he remembers the pain in his mother’s eyes when she spoke of her cousin Revka, her daughter ripped from her arms by templars, wailing through the streets of Hightown.

Percy follows him out of the Chantry as Carver returns from the town square, Bethany’s limp body in his arms. Tears streak the grime on his cheeks, but he stoically walks towards the place they’ve cleared in the center of the courtyard, setting her down amongst the boards and branches he and Aveline have collected. Percy kneels and adds the scraps he and Wesley salvaged to the pile. He doesn’t want to look at Bethany--he wants his last memory of her to be better than it is. As the rest of them gather, he stands, watching as Aveline approaches him.

Percy recognizes what’s in her arms as his father’s staff, snapped in half. The brass figure of Andraste remains untarnished, but the wooden grip has fractured across the middle, the blade at the opposite end barely attached.

“I thought you might want this,” she says. “I don’t know if mages can use staves after they’ve been broken like this, but...I’d want to keep it, if I were you.”

Percy takes it from her, cradling it gently. He hardly remembers a time when Father didn’t use this staff. Bethany took it after he died and kept it close, as if the last piece she had of her father would disappear if she let it go.

“Thank you,” he says.

Father’s--Bethany’s--staff tucked under his arm, Percy extends a hand over the kindling. The fire spreads quickly, until all he sees in front of him are rising flames. He doesn’t bow his head as the others do; he watches the smoke rise, stands beside the pyre to control it as it burns. Wesley administered the funerary rites long ago, but Percy mutters them under his breath again, and in the silence that follows, whispers the words of a verse that once comforted him,

“‘Within My creation, none are alone.’”

As he speaks the last word, the tears he’s held back for far too long break free with an ugly, ragged sob. He holds the pieces of the staff to his chest and tries desperately to calm himself, but he can’t take back leaving Bethany behind, and he remembers the ogre’s fist crashing into the earth every time he closes his eyes.

The sun is low in the sky by the time he extinguishes the pyre. They bury the ashes where they lie, near the steps of the Chantry, and mark Bethany’s resting place with a stone from the building’s crumbling facade.

“I’ll...I’ll bring this with us,” Carver says, holding her scarf tightly. “Not like I’d have any use for the staff. The way it looks now, you might not either.”

Percy finds a way to fasten both halves to his satchel before hoisting it over his shoulders, following the others towards the woods. “This isn’t the time, Carver.”

“Isn’t the time for what? My company was almost slaughtered at Ostagar, my home burned down, my twin sister just died, and you’re really about to get self-righteous with me?”

“That’s not...” Percy sighs. _Lothering was my home too,_ he wants to say, _and Bethany was my sister._ But it isn’t the time for that either. “We’re all we have. I don’t want to fight from here to Gwaren.”

“Then when _do_ you want to fight?”

He doesn’t. He never has. But he knows the need to.

“When we reach Kirkwall,” he says. “I can’t do this right now.”

“Yeah. I thought you’d say that.”

Percy glances towards him. “Carver?”

Nothing.

“Carver, I’m sorry.”

Carver’s expression speaks for him, and it says far too much for Percy to decipher.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! You can find me at @lavellanhunter on Twitter, where I sometimes rant about writing this story.


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